


My Doctor

by ArmageddonGeneration



Category: Doctor Who, Doctor Who (2005), Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Adam was the Doctor, Angst, Based on a Tumblr Post, F/M, High School, Hunk & Lance (Voltron) Friendship, Identity Issues, M/M, One-Sided Attraction, Past Adam/Shiro (Voltron), Pidge is the Doctor now, Pining Pidge | Katie Holt, Pining Shiro (Voltron), Post Regeneration, Post-Canon, Regeneration, Sonic Screwdriver, What to do when your crush turns into a grumpy teenage girl, based on fanart, they're in it for like a second you guys
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-11-15
Updated: 2018-12-13
Packaged: 2019-08-24 01:41:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 10,120
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16630472
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ArmageddonGeneration/pseuds/ArmageddonGeneration
Summary: Shiro has been running with the Doctor for a year. Just long enough for him to fall in love. He thought he'd seen it all.Then his Doctor turns into a very grumpy, very sarcastic teenage girl.(Help.)Based on this amazing art by Fate221 on tumblr!





	1. Strike Fifteen - part 1

Imagine this.

Your name is Takashi Shirogane, and you’re ten years old when you’re sure, surer than you’ve ever been about anything in your life, that one day you’re going to reach up and touch the stars.

Your name is Takashi Shirogane, and you’re fifteen years old when a doctor sits you down and takes to your dreams with a sledgehammer. You’re fifteen when your mother goes into emotional shutdown because her son is dying, and your Dad falls back into drinking and then falls off the map completely.

By the time you’re nineteen your life has just… Stopped. You’re stuck in the suburbs looking after a mother who can’t look you in the eye, trying to fill the hole left by a father who jumped ship the moment the going got rough. You can’t even see the stars anymore through all the light pollution.

Then you meet another Doctor, who takes your hand and holds it tight and leads you out of the dark.

(his skin is tanned, and his smiles are sharp and serious, but his eyes dance in starlight.)

He takes you to end of the universe and back in a little blue box, to see the birth of stars and the end of empires.

(stern, controlled, disciplined.)

You save planets, found civilisations and vanquish monsters.

(kind, heroic, empathetic.)

He saves a life you didn’t think was worth living anymore. He finds you just when you think your time is running out and gives you all the time in the world. Finally, you can let go of responsibility, let go of the parent you had to support like a child and the death sentence that aged you before your time. The Doctor sets you _free._

And then one day he turns to look at you from the crest of a hill, his face bathed in royal purple by the blue and red suns in the sky; his smile gleams like the first stars at twilight and you think, _shit._

Your name is Takashi Shirogane, and you’re twenty years old when you fall in love.

…

The Galra Empire has stood for ten thousand years. For generations beyond counting it has dominated galaxy after galaxy, spawning the most despicable war criminals of the age. These people are genocidal mass-murderers who bathe in the blood of whole star systems. Their names are the terror of every planet for a thousand lightyears.

But in the end, none of that matters.

In the end, the guy who kills the Doctor is a nobody. Shiro doesn’t even know his name.

They’ve won, the Doctor and him, as always; disabled the Galra death-ray poised to scorch the planet below and set it to drop out of orbit. The station would burn up on re-entry and they would just saunter off back to the TARDIS. As always.

Until this random grunt turns on his heel and blows a hole through the Doctor’s chest.

Everyone stares down at the body like it isn’t real, a prop from some tragic farce. Then there’s lots of shouting and running from the other soldiers (Shiro thinks, he isn’t listening) and then they’re gone (Shiro thinks, he isn’t looking) and now he’s left with this lifeless mannequin of his saviour.

The floor wasn’t that red a minute ago, was it?

An explosion rocks the station and jerks Shiro to life. He realises what’s happening, crouches down, rolls the body over - oh God, that’s too much blood –

“Takashi…“ the Doctor manages, still breathing, barely, “TARDIS.”

Shiro nods numbly and lifts him onto his shoulder, dragging him out of the control room as quickly as he dares.

Another shockwave almost knocks them off their feet; the Doctor cries out but Shiro catches him under his armpit, hoists him back up. The screech of rending metal wracks the corridor, and through a window Shiro watches the bottom half of the station tear away like paper.

OK, level head, get to the box and the Doctor can do something. He’ll have healing pods or a medical bay or something… there’s always something…

Shiro tears himself away from the planet corkscrewing bigger and bigger through the window, seizes the Doctor’s arm and picks up the pace.

Energy crackles across the metal plate ceiling. The station’s cabling must’ve ruptured: Yellow energy lacerates the metal around Shiro’s feet and he breaks into a sprint, the Doctor slung across his back like a ragdoll.

“Come on, stay with me,” he’s babbling, “stay with me you can’t leave I need you stay with me –“

Up ahead, to the left, a few soldiers batter at a locked door, desperate, screaming. Shiro barely notices.

“Stay with me, I –“

“Door, Takashi,” the Doctor whispers, threadbare, failing.

“What?” Shiro pants.

“Sonic the door,” his head flops toward the soldiers still beating uselessly at the lock, “help.”

“We don’t have –“

“- time to argue,” the Doctor finishes, “left pocket, setting 36… 362.”

His eyes slide shut and fear spikes in Shiro’s chest, he fumbles for the Sonic through blood-soaked pockets and finds it - the world is blurry for tears and sparks, but he presses the button and the door clicks and the soldiers thunder through like frightened animals and leave the Doctor and him for dead –

BOOM

Shiro staggers forward, ducks the energy cable whipping down, careens around the corner –

POLICE PUBLIC CALL BOX

Shiro is crying now, the air is alive with energy but the man on his back is nearly dead. He rushes forward, the key scrapes over the lock _come on –_

The ceiling behind them collapses just as he shoves the door open and heaves the Doctor across the threshold into warm, golden light.

The door slams. Shiro lies on his back, panting. He needs to get up, needs to help before it’s too –

“Takashi,” says a hoarse voice Shiro barely recognises. He rolls over and meets the eyes that saved his life, old and strong and the colour of coffee drops. The Doctor smiles, and opens his mouth to say something comforting – _tell me it’s OK, Doctor, make this OK_ – but all that comes out is red.

And then something… _other_ happens.

Golden energy unfurls from the Doctor’s body like blooming marigolds, streams of gaseous amber shooting from his arms and head with the roar and thunder of a hurricane. His body is lifted up off the floor like a leaf in the wind. Someone screams from deep in the eye of the storm, but that voice isn’t the Doctor’s, isn’t anyone’s, the echo of a thousand others, unsure of which to be.

The energy shuts off like a tap being turned and the body drops back to the floor, still wreathed in a corona of golden light. Shiro stares.

“D… Doctor…?”

The bundle of shirt and greatcoat groans and shifts.

“Ugh,” says a little voice, and up pops a face framed by shock of auburn hair.

Shiro stares at the girl sitting where the Doctor’s corpse should be. She stares back with eyes the colour of sunlight through honey. The Doctor’s glasses slip down her nose.

“When the heck did you get so big?” she grumbles, pointing a finger Shiro can’t even see for how long the Doctor’s sleeves are on her, “When did I get so… small?” her hands fly to the space above her head like she’s expecting something to be there. “Oh my god, I’m a Sontaran!” she squeaks, running her hands from hair to face to neck, “A really skinny, really fluffy Sontaran! No, wait. That’s not it. I’m just…” she totters to her feet, a newborn doe taking her first steps, and twirls on the spot, bewildered, “That can’t be right either! There’s been a mistake. You did it wrong!” she yells at no-one, “You… _I_ did it wrong, I’m only half done!” she scowls, “Oh, that’s rubbish, it’s like taking your buns out of the oven too soon –”

“Who are you?” Shiro manages. The girl remembers he’s here.

“That’s what I’m trying to figure out, Takashi. Keep up.”

Shiro feels a stab at the sound of the name on an unfamiliar tongue. _(Alien_ , he realises, properly for the first time),

“Well, it appears I’m a woman again. I _think,_ ” the girl chews her lip, apparently unsure of this conclusion, “that’s good. Always appreciate a change of pace. Aaand…” she whips back round to face him, making him flinch, and removes the Doctor’s glasses experimentally, “Shit. I still need these things.”

“You’re him?” Shiro realizes, remembering the conversation they’d had months ago, “You’re the regeneration?”

“Obviously,” she goes for an extravagant bow and nearly trips over her overlong trousers, “number fifteen at your service. Well, fifteen plus-one. There’s always a _smidge_ extra. But not because of Peter Cushing!” she points at Shiro sternly, “those films were unlicensed knockoffs. Good for a laugh though,” she relaxes out again, chin-tapping thoughtfully, “Only time I ever heard an Ice Warrior giggle, watching one of those movies. _Giggle_ , can you imagine? Ten-foot canned crocodile giggling like a schoolgirl. Ooh, there’s defensive application in that. Great distraction technique, though probably not against the Daleks,” she whirls on him, eyes gleaming, “but what if it even worked on the Daleks, Takashi? What if Peter Cushing actually made the Daleks lau-”

“Don’t,” Shiro holds out an arm to protect himself from the barrage of words.

“Don’t what?”

“Don’t… call me Takashi,” he manages.

Her face falls.

“Oh.”

Shiro shuffles awkwardly on the spot, suddenly painfully aware that he’s standing in the middle of an alien spaceship millions of years and billions of miles from Earth.

“I want to go home,” he hears himself say, surprised he calls it that.

The girl is confused too.

“Home? But you’re – oh, you mean... Lawn mowers, street signs, picket fences. That sort of thing,” she chews her lip again, a nervous habit developing, “Why?”

“I...”

“Do you want to go… back?”

Not _home_. She doesn’t call it home, because she knows Shiro’s started calling _here_ home, this funny little box on the corner of nowhere street, no-when.

“I don’t know,” he says honestly. The silence stretches. He wants the rota to kick-start, so he can run away with –

Who?

“Well, that’s good,” the stranger wearing his Doctor’s clothes tries for a timid smile, “No point going somewhere you already know the answers.”

Then two things happen:

  1. The girl’s trousers fall down



“Ah,” she says, looking down at the pool of fabric around her ankles, “I suppose I’ll be needing new clothes.”

  1. The TARDIS explodes.



“Ah,” she says again, “perhaps clothes can wait.”

A chunk of falling space station smashes through the ceiling. Debris explode everywhere, the cloisters clang to life, roundles implode like a chain of firecrackers, _pop-pop-pop,_ and Shiro’s stomach rollercoaster-drops.

They’re in freefall.

Station shrapnel whizzes past his face, sparks firework across the room, the sky whirls sickening through the gaping hole in the roof, and the girl is just standing there in the middle of it all, staring.

A column groans and starts to crumble. Shiro leaps and tackles the her out of the way just as an avalanche of rubble smashes a hole in the console.

More sparks. Fireball. The cloisters shut off. The TARDIS _screams_.

Shiro and the girl are thrown across the room; it’s all he can do to cocoon her with his body as best he can, take the brunt of it when they bodyslam the wall, cling tighter as they’re pinballed away – he knows a nosedive when he feels one, and they’re in trouble now. The hole in the ceiling veers into view and he kicks away from the open maw of sky flashing past, faster and faster –

“What’s going on?!” he screams over the keening of the ship.

“Her outer-shell’s been breached!” the girl yells, “it’s taking everything she has to keep us from being sucked out, she doesn’t have time for gravity –“

There’s another _boom_ and something punches a huge dent the wall.

“This shouldn’t be happening!” the girl yells, “if you put the shields up when we got in –“

“If I did what?” Shiro yells. A sliver of rubble knifes past his ear.

“Shields, Ta- Shiro, did you not put up the shields?”

“You never taught me how!”

“Never taught you –“ her face brightens, “oh right, that was the other one!“

“Other one?!”

“One of them. Doesn’t matter, get me to the console.”

“But-“

“Now!”

Shiro grimaces and kicks off the wall; they soar between slicing shards of coral and steel (it’s OK, it’s just a simulation, you’ve flown these a thousand times –)

Something nicks his ankle. The console is within reach, a hole punched in it by the rubble. The girl stretches her arms out –

“I can’t reach!”

Desperation twists Shiro’s guts.

“You can’t –“

She flails in mid-air.

“Curse my short little arms! Shiro, push off!”

He understands, brings his knees in, places their feet together – so much smaller than his now – and pushes her with all his strength.

Good news: the girl grabs the console with both hands and holds fast.

Bad news: Shiro goes cartwheeling into a field of debris. A thousand razor blades fly at his face and white-hot pain streaks across his nose –

“Got it!” the girl yells, elbow-deep in the console like a plumber cleaning out a drain, “hold on to your butt!”

The same amber energy from before flares from inside the console like a match being struck.

The TARDIS bellows like a supercharged engine. The sky outside tears away like tissue paper and a seething kaleidoscope explodes in its place.

Unsurprisingly, two seconds isn’t long enough for Shiro to hold on to anything, even his butt.

The world goes tumbling like the inside of a washing machine, pain sears across his face and the hole in the roof swallows him up and he falls out of the box and –

oops.

Creation drowns him in a technicolour thunderstorm; liquid fireworks flood him mouth to lung to vein – _and he sees the first sparks flare against cold cave walls thousands of years ago, and typhoons rage Mongol warships into matchsticks off the Japanese coast, and a bloated white boot comes down on the barren grey skin of the moon –_

A hand catches his ankle, holds fast. Small fingers, slender, firm. They reel him in, a fishing line fighting the current –

Shiro is pulled back under the roof of the TARDIS and gasps deep lungfuls of air. He twists; the girl has him, a length of cable wrapped around the time rota the only thing holding them in place. She grins at him, bright and fierce as a lioness.

Then they (crash) land.

Ow.


	2. Strike Fifteen - Part 2

Hello! Me again. Well, not exactly _me_ , and not exactly _again,_ either. It’s all a bit complicated isn’t it? Tell you what it’s like, it’s like when you’re playing a video game, and you get _this close_ to beating the final boss, but then you die and have to start the level all over again.

Look at me, down with the kids. I s’pose I’ll have to be now.

My name is…

Oh. No, I’m not meant to tell you that bit. I don’t think I even remember it myself anymore, to be honest. Will that stop you asking?

Anyway, I’m looking for a name. It has to be a good name, because I get to choose it. Unlike you lot, you humans, assigned names at birth by those you’ll soon outlive. To you, names are just labels you stick on each other stop yourselves getting confused.

Not me. I had a real name, a _me_ name. I wonder where it went?

I am born to fire and the scream of bleeding time.

I wake in the dirt, covered in twigs and leaves. There’s mud in my mouth. It tastes of pollution and mid-morning and America, maybe? Late twenty-first century-ish.

Then I realise there’s mud in my mouth, so I spit it out, sit up and swear.

(Ooh. That’s new. Never been big on swearing before. It’s always weird, having your thoughts translated by a new tongue. Now I can finally tell Davros I think he’s a whiny little b**ch)

Gradually, the world takes the shape of thick, sky-scraping trees and a patchwork canopy filtering the morning light on the ground below. Oooh, that’s interesting. Is it? Why? What have I noticed?

I crawl forward and wave a hand through one of these pools of light, warm to cool to warm again. My new skin flashes paper white, but I can’t figure out what I saw, or what I _think_ I saw, because let’s be honest a regenerating mind is the mental equivalent of a caffeinated toddler that just likes to run around and scream and smear everything with finger-paint –

(Alright, so not exactly like a caffeinated toddler. Bad analogy. Sorry, I’m still putting myself back together).

I stagger to my feet, eyes following the sunbeam back up towards the forest canopy. I lift my hands up to try and catch it, cupped hands under a leaking gutter…

Something groans behind me.

I whip round. There, on the forest floor. Big, lumpy thing with black hair and clothes and red splashed across its –

_Takashi._

I stumble over to him, skidding on my knees. Takashi’s face is painted scarlet; a deep gash slices across his nose and his eyelids flutter like moth wings. Fear claws at my insides like I haven’t felt in lifetimes.

_Help him, you idiot, that’s what you’re meant to do, why don’t you –_

My hands reach out, regeneration energy already dancing across my fingertips, shooting off in arcs like tiny sun flares. He just lies there like a corpse.

_Don’t die Takashi, please don’t, I can’t –_

_Pull yourself together. You were a professional five minutes ago._

I don’t feel very professional. I feel like a girl out of my depth. My hands are shaking.

I cup Takashi’s face with both hands and pour myself into his skin. Regeneration energy seeps through his pores, flickering over him like silent fire, drawing in blood , knitting bone back together, healing skin.

Takashi bucks and spasms like he’s been touched with a livewire, but I hold on tighter, too tight, forcing the life on him.

“Come on,” I spit, bent over him like a mourner, “you’re literally the only thing I know you stupid – you can’t –“

Nothing. One second. Two seconds.

Then he shudders, fingers and toes flexing. His eyes flutter open. Bleary, confused.

“Doctor…?” he manages, “is that you?”

(There it is.)

I realise I’m crying and laughing at the same time. I can’t help it; the sound of that name (My name. _Mine._ ) on his lips, exactly where it should be, with his head in my lap and that look of complete faith in his eyes…

“Yes,” the Doctor hiccups, “Yes, it’s me. I’m here.”

And because Takashi is alive and the Doctor is here, she leans down and kisses him, regeneration energy sparking around the connection like a halo of fireworks.

_(Mine.)_

Then Takashi wakes up.

_“Wha-“_

A hand shoves the Doctor away and she goes sprawling in the dirt. There’s the sound of Takashi scrambling to his feet and quite a lot of swearing (Oi. That’s _my_ thing now).

“What the hell was that?” Takashi yells down at the Doctor. From her position on the floor he appears upside-down and rather cross.

“TARDIS,” the Doctor says, pointing over his shoulder.

“You what?” Takashi turns to look and gapes. My TARDIS is caught in the bows of a great oak tree, its doors dangling open like the limbs of a mounted corpse.

“How did that happen?” Takashi asks.

“Her external dimensions must be frazzled,” the Doctor suggests, because she’s expected to say something even if she doesn’t have a clue, “her weight will be in flux. She’s probably so light right now you could lift her with one hand.”

“I – isn’t that dangerous? Couldn’t she blow away in the wind or something?”

“Maybe,” the Doctor yawns. These leaves would make a very comfy pillow.

(She can’t make out anything of the TARDIS interior through its open doors. Just an empty, cavernous dark. Probably not the best sign.) 

She jumps up.

“Come on! I’ve still got to go clothes shopping. Then we can find some tools and try to fix her,” she tries on that trademark Doctor Smile that tells all the small, scared people that everything will be OK, except the Smile doesn’t seem to fit my face very well because Takashi looks wholly unimpressed.

“You just kissed me,” he accuses.

“I saved your life,” the Doctor corrects.

“I had a cut on my face,” he frowns, “Not exactly life-threatening.”

“You – oh,” the Doctor scratches her head awkwardly, because of course a gash across the nose wasn’t deadly. There was just so much _blood_ and the smell of it dragged her back into the War again, back to the battlefields that stank of the stuff. That stench had chased her across every moment of reality, and then it was here, in this little forest clearing, clinging to her human… “Sorry.”

Takashi traces the new scar across the bridge of his nose.

“How did you even do that?”

“Regeneration energy can heal anything. Kind of like the wet paper towel of the universe.”

“Regeneration energy?” his eyes go wide, “the stuff that made you change? That’s not going to happen to me is it? I’m not going to –“

His voice rises high and frantic. The Doctor waves a reassuring hand.

“No, it’s not going to change you,” she frowns at the unfamiliar distrust in his eyes, “Cross my hearts.”

“Why would you do that anyway? Not the healing. The… _Other_ thing.”

“Oh,” the Doctor coughs, lips tingling, and her face goes all strange and warm. She thinks this might be called _blushing_. Been a while since that’s happened, “well, you reminded me who I was. You gave me my name. Doctor.”

“You’re not,” he says.

“… Oh,” the Doctor says. My new legs betray her and give way; she has to sit back in the dirt before she falls on her face. My face.

He hadn’t seen me when he named me. Of course not, he was only half-conscious. He thought I was still…

A beat of silence while the Doctor melts away.

Takashi winces.

“I just mean you’re not him. He wouldn’t have done that for a start. He never showed any kind of…”

“Emotion?” I finish, “Yeah, well, the Doctor’s had a lot of practice lying to humans.”

I’m surprised by how bitter it sounds.

Takashi glares at me.

“Don’t you dare –“

“Tell the truth? Rule one, Shiro: The Doctor lies. And if I’m not the Doctor anymore then fuck the rules, right?”

“Wow. You really are a teenager.”

My first laugh is cold and humourless.

“Yeah, well. You don’t have to worry about that anymore. Home’s that way, I think,” I point in whatever direction will get him away from me.

“Home? You mean you actually got me - is this the forest near my house?”

“Yup. Give or take a few days. Or decades, depending on how bad my aim was.”

Takashi looks back around the clearing, recognition flickering in his eyes. For a second, I wonder what that would feel like. For a second the leaves on the trees are silver, and the sunlight is a burnt orange setting them ablaze. Then he looks back down at me, sitting on my folded, newborn legs.

“So that’s it? You’re just dropping me off like a stray cat in a box?”

“Have a nice life,” I give him a salute, trying to look suave and in-control the way the Doctor was. There are twigs in my hair and my face is still smeared with mud. He scowls at me.

“Is that a joke?”

Something clicks in my head.

“Oh right. Life is a touchy subject, because of the whole cancer thing. Sorry about that,” the fury in his eyes scares my mouth into running away from me, “I mean, that’s kind of funny right? Since I was just born. New life and death. Poetic, almost. Ying and Ya–“

“Who are you?” he says emptily. My mouth snaps shut.

“Fuck if I know. I’m only fifteen minutes old, remember?”

He shakes his head and storms off through the trees. I watch my only link to the Doctor disappear.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So I experimented a lot with perspective here. I Don't know if anyone's read Steven Moffat's novelisation of The Day of The Doctor, but that the War Doctor narrates in First person - he only uses Third person when he's acting like the Doctor, playing the part of the hero. I tried to do a similar thing here, separating the personality of the new body/regeneration (First person) with the persona of the Doctor (Third person). Like a superhero and her secret identity.
> 
> Anyway, I'd love to know what you all thought! Is this a good idea or is it too confusing (it'll clear up as Pidge gets a better idea of who she is). Comments are beautiful and gorgeous and valued beyond life.


	3. Strike Fifteen - Part 3

For a long time, I lay on the forest floor, curled into the feotal position. I cry for the person I used to be for a little bit, and then I go quiet.

It’s all this new body’s fault. All fizzing hormones and youth and raw, unchecked emotion...

I’m a child again, back to when the Doctor was barely a twinkle in my eye.

It’s the Sonic that gets me going again, of course. Or what’s left of it.

I’m roused by a sharp beeping from inside the Doctor’s coat. I fumble around for where Takashi left it and pull out the screwdriver’s frazzled corpse. The metal casing is a twisted, mangled mess. The rich amber crystal split cleanly into a long, thin slivers flickering sickly green.

Something catches in the back of my throat. I squat in the dirt with my head bowed over its remains, trying not to cry.

“I’m sorry,” I whisper, “I’m sorry, I can’t even get this right –“

The Sonic beeps insistently. I scowl at it, annoyed.

“Stop giving me readings, I’m trying to apologise! Yes, that’s very interesting, but can’t you see– _oooh.”_

I clamber to my feet with the crystal held out in front of me, balanced on my palm like a compass needle. The green glow pulses like a thousand fireflies are trapped inside.

So that’s what I saw.

The sunbeams around me are bending. Something in the forest ahead is drawing in the light, like strands of spaghetti being sucked up by… um…

(Sorry. Still haven’t got the hang of this whole articulation thing).

In front of me the forest is unnaturally dark, as if the trees are drinking in the sun. There are some very interesting readings coming from in there.

No, not just interesting: There’s the other magic word in there, too.

_New._

I think of what the Doctor would do. Smile, and move forward.

A snippet of Earth nursery rhyme comes to mind as I march into the dark. It seems appropriate.

My voice is high and scratchy as it rises into the sky.

_“If you go into the woods today, you’ll be in for a big surprise…”_

***

_“Takashi.”_

_Shiro woke convinced he was still dreaming. His room was dark, the only light spilling in from the open doorway. The Doctor was silhouetted there, leaning against the doorframe, his glasses gilded gold by the light from the corridor._

_The Doctor was in his room. Oh God, the Doctor was in his room and Shiro wasn’t wearing a shirt._

_“Get dressed,” the Doctor said softly, as if he could read his mind, and Shiro flinched because if the Doctor could do that he’d have a lot of explaining to do. But the Doctor just pushed off the doorframe and out of sight._

_Shiro scrambled out of bed and stumbled into the hallway still trying to pull a shirt over his head. The Doctor was just ahead, not waiting but moving slow enough for Shiro to catch up. He led him through the usual maze of twisting corridors; they passed doorway after doorway, through which Shiro spied herb gardens, a tennis court, an artist’s studio, a hall of mirrors…_

_As always, Shiro wanted to stop and explore. As always, the Doctor never wavered. If you stopped, he said, the TARDIS would confuse you, lure you away. She was a kind soul, he said, but she got bored in her old age, and lonely. She liked to play tricks. Best to keep your eyes and mind ahead. Always moving forward._

_Eventually they came to a door Shiro had never seen before, and out came the sonic with a whir._

_“Come on,” the Doctor smiled, his first words in a while, and stepped through the doorway. Shiro followed him in and…_

_Oh._

_Oh, wow._

_It was a planetarium. The circular walls sloped upwards and disappeared into the heavens, a yawning void of midnight purple where the ceiling should be, scattered with glittering stars and nebulae clouds in colours Shiro never knew existed, hanging there in the darkness. Just out of reach._

_He took a step forward, looked down and almost had a heart attack. The floor was a sweeping, circular mirror reflecting the cosmos above, so it looked as if Shiro was walking in starlight. A flash of nausea hit him; it was like looking down in a glass elevator and watching the people below fall away to ants._

_The Doctor stood in the middle of it all, looking up. The centre of the whole universe._

_“Don’t you think it’s amazing how nothing in the universe ever really dies?” he asked, “Stars may supernova and planets may fall to dust, but eventually the dust falls to atoms, and the atoms to energy, and then the whole cycle starts over again,” he sweeps an arm around the room, “The circle of life.”_

_“Doctor, what’s this about?” Shiro asks, still convinced this was some kind of fantasy, that any minute he’d wake up back in bed. Then again, he’d been thinking that every night he settled down to sleep here -  that come morning he’d be back in that too-small too-big house with Mom shuffling past his door like a phantom. It hadn’t happened yet._

_It was a long time before the Doctor said anything._

_“How long are you planning on staying with me Takashi?”_

_(Plan? There was no plan, just forwards, always running with his eyes on the ground in front and his hand safe in the Doctor’s -)_

_For as long as you’ll have me, I guess,” Shiro shrugged, rubbing the back of his neck._

_This time when the Doctor turned to smile at him, the stars painted his glasses liquid silver._

_“Good,” he murmured, “That’s… Good. Only it may not be me anymore. Eventually.”_

_“What do you mean?” Shiro asked cautiously._

_“I can’t have you taking any more risks, Takashi,” he said firmly, “not like today. Or the day before that. Or the incident with the vicaptors last week.”_

_“I know, I know. Stop playing the hotshot.”_

_“Just because we’re free doesn’t mean we get to run wild,” the Doctor warned, “and I can’t have you hurting yourself,” (ignore the heart flutter, Shiro, ignore it) “… Especially now.”_

_“Why now? What’s happening now?”_

_The Doctor sighed and lowered himself cross-legged onto the floor. His eyes were a million lightyears away._

_“I’ve been putting this off for some time, but I’m afraid you’ve gotten too close. You’ve been here too long. You deserve to know.”_

_“About what?” Shiro sat next to him, just far enough apart that their knees weren’t touching. The Doctor wasn’t looking at him. Instead he stared at his own reflection in the mirrored floor, trying to pin it in place, as if scared it would slip away._

_“What happens if… something happens to me,” he said._

_“What, like death? Are you dying? You’re not –“_

_“No,” his eyes met Shiro’s again, calm and coffee-warm and comforting, “I won’t die, I’ll just be – expelled as energy. And the energy will congregate into atoms, and the eventually the atoms will form stars,” he looks up at the galaxies twirling above them, a smile ghosting across his lips, “I wonder how brightly I’ll shine.”_

_“So you’re… going to be a ghost?” Shiro frowned, trying to keep up._

_“No. But when we’re dying, Time Lords have this... safeguard. We shed the damaged body, like a snake sheds skin,” the Doctor studied his own hand in the shifting starlight, “Everything about me will change. How I look, how I talk. And the person that takes my  place won’t be me anymore,” he fixed Shiro with the serious, I-Am-The-Doctor eyes, “That person may not want you around. They may not recognise you, but… Once again, Takashi, I must ask too much of you,” the Doctor’s hand found its way onto Shiro’s. A slight squeeze, a question, a plea for help, “Guide them. Teach them. Remind them who they’re meant to be.”_

_Shiro’s mouth went dry. He was pretty sure he should have been worrying more, but all the blood had moved from his brain to his hand, still clasped in the Doctor’s own._

_“Why me?” he managed._

_The Doctor treats Shiro to that smile that had swept him across galaxies._

_“I trust you, Takashi. With this life and the next.”_

***

Shiro is in mourning. He thinks.

Home passes him in still images as he walks, snapshots from a family photo album; the houses, the flowerbeds, the park where he learned to ride a bike….

_This life and the next._

What kind of a warning was that? Was it so hard for him to say, Hey, Takashi, don’t let me die because I might turn into a gremlin?

And of course, Shiro hadn’t asked any follow-up questions, hadn’t found it strange the Doctor was giving him the sad eyes and holding his hand and making weird snake analogies. Because he’d been a kid with a schoolboy crush, so glad to be included in another part of the Doctor’s life, and now…

The Doctor couldn’t even die properly. Shiro doesn’t know if he’s in mourning because he doesn’t know what the hell happened. Is the Doctor gone for good?

For a second hot, blind resentment burns Shiro’s insides. How dare he, how dare the Doctor give him a home and hope and freedom and then steal it all away, like a boot through a sandcastle.

That was the problem, wasn’t it? Shiro’s life on the TARDIS had been this perfect, golden bubble. So fragile. He’d been so scared of popping it. Then the Doctor had gone and stuck a pin in it anyway.

Shiro’s mind flits back to the girl in the forest; small, angry. All alone now. His resentment is washed away by regret. He should go back to her. He had promised.

But then his lips tingle and he remembers the warm press of her mouth, the taste of lemon zest and a summer lightning storm as the energy flooded his body. He remembers the feel of her soul reaching inside of him and remoulding his flesh like clay, the rush of pure potential take him like a riptide. In that moment the energy could have _made_ him anything. He was completely at its mercy.

It had been terrifying. God knows how the girl felt. On second thoughts, Shiro doubted even He knew. The Doctor certainly hadn’t. _They may not want you around_ , he’d said _, They may not recognise you._

Not that they’d kiss him.

His nose still itches like there are ants crawling under his skin; he rubs at the new scar and a few golden sparks flare up in front of him like dying bonfire embers. He waves them away fearfully, reminders of the infinite questions _Who_ and _What_ and _Why_.

Who?

Shiro needs an anchor. He needs a reminder of the person he was before all this craziness. He needs home. He can’t help the girl if he’s this confused. She needs an anchor too.

Shiro forces himself to look up, to take in the sunshine winking off polished cars and windows, the smell of freshly-cut lawn and flowers. He remembers everything being a lot greyer.

It’s early morning here at home; the garbage truck will have just finished its round of the neighbourhood, and ahead of him he can see old Mr. Peters leaving the convenience store after his daily pilgrimage for a pack of cigarettes.

“Shirogane,” Mr. Peters grunts as Shiro approaches, “haven’t seen you for a few days.”

Shiro manages a weak smile. A few days. Six months ago he’d been trekking along the coasts of the Nightmare Tide. A few days.

“You all right, pal?” Peters frowns, “it isn’t the smokes is it? Listen, I know you might be sensitive because of your… uh, condition, but I’m really too old to be thinkin’ about quittin’ now…”

“Huh?” Shiro says. He’s been distracted by a display in the store window; _Cards For Special Occasions. Sorry For Your Loss_ , consoles one card on the right. _Happy Birthday!!_ cheers the one next to it. _It’s a Girl!_ congratulates another. _To the One I Love_ … “Sorry,” Shiro forces a smile, “I’ve been travelling for a while, that’s all. Better go check up on Mom.”

He leaves Mr Peters behind.

***

Added to the growing list of things that already hate my new body: Mother Nature.

I’ve never had allergies before. I didn’t even know I could get them. Can you imagine trying to fight to Nuns of New Earth with an allergy to cat hair?

I sneeze for about the sixty-bajillionth time (factually inaccurate; it’s sneeze thirty-two and half, not including sniffles) and stumble to halt. My legs have already been sliced to buggery and rehealed; at this rate I’ll run out of regeneration energy by the end of the day.

My Sonic Screwdriver compass has led me deep into the woods. Gnarled, broken tree limbs and jagged spears of ash and aspen crowd in from all sides. Mist rolls heavy over the rotting leaves like mustard gas rolling over bodies. It’s cooler in here. Gooseflesh swarms up my bare legs.

I ignore the cold, focus on the questions: The light beams above (way, _way_ above) my head are at a near forty-five degree angle now. Further on, I can just make out a strange new light pulsing through the slits between twisted root-knuckles. A purplish, greenish hue, the dirty rainbow of oil in water. My footsteps are too loud in the sound-chamber of trees, and I keep tripping on things that hide in the writhing shadows, but come _on_ , I must be getting closer n-

 _-OW, ow, ow,_ thorn in my foot, shit that stings -

I do a dignified sort of high kick and land on my backside in the damp earth. If only the Doctor could see me now.

Behind me something animal growls in the dark.

I remember how to run; two thousand years of nightmare spawn and endless corridors has me up and over a nearby log in seconds.

The sound of heavy razor claws carving furrows in the dirt. Deep, laboured breathing around a mouth of razor teeth. Is that wolf I smell? Or bear? No, that’s definitely lupine - or not, could be, for fuck’s sake make up your mind -

A growl like an avalanche rips through my guts and I forget to breathe.

I need to see. Quick peek at the bedroom closet from under the bedclothes, just pop my head out -

I slam myself back down, tasting blood as I bite my tongue. _(Please don’t see me, pleasepleasepleaseplease -)_ but not before I see the eyes of something broken. Something angry and rabid and born that way. Driven mad by the impossibility of its own existence.

Right, so. Not a wolf. Or a bear. It’s… well, er, looking on the bright side, you could say I’ve got the best of both worlds. Or the worst.

The predator stalking the clearing (huge, rippling muscle, jagged lupine ears, paws like siege engines) swipes at a nearby tree and splinters explode over my hiding place like bomb shrapnel. I squeak like a mouse and thank every god the Doctor never believed in that the noise covers it up, yank my legs in, press myself into my hiding place, try not to breathe -

I don’t notice the thrum on my bloodied tongue until it’s too late. Regeneration energy fizzes inside my mouth like cosmic sherbet, hot and cold and soft needle-prick welling up inside -

The energy leaves me in a cloud of gossamer gold, puff of old life rising up into the night and gone. Bye bye, Doctor.

It’s also a signal flare.

**HI THERE! GUESS WHO?! DINNER IS SERVED!**

I throw myself forward, the monster lunges with a guttural bellow and smashes my hiding place to pieces.

_Run._

(Eyes forward, stitch in your side, pawfalls behind. Nettles, branches whip your face, tree roots, mud, stone to mouth to blood, up, run –)

The world tips under my unpracticed feet and the monster’s growl thunders at my heels. My side burns like fire but it’s still coming - push _harder_ -

A tree branch implodes over my head and I scream; prey, predator closing in - keep your eyes forward –

Turn, there, sunlight. Did it see? Doesn’t matter, keep -

I burst through a line of bushes into sunlight and the ground disappears from under me. I go tumbling down a steep hill, head over heels over head, until I lay panting a bruised and very, very cross on flat ground twenty feet below.

I scramble to my feet, eyes on the treeline, frantic. But the monster does not appear. Funny. It should’ve got me by now. Not that I’m complaining, but really, what was it playing at? It had all the advantages. I’m still re-learning to walk.

No matter. I allow myself my first real smile, because if that wasn’t a baptism-by-fire I don’t know what else is.

Is that the phrase? I’m not sure.

Anyway, I manage to lurch forward on my exhausted legs, and the world sloshes about a bit but that’s alright. The woods are thinner here, brighter. None of that light-bending nonsense. Maybe there are houses nearby, and a shop. I’ll finally be able to find some fucking trousers.

I’m just congratulating myself for being customarily brilliant when a yank-snare closes around my ankle and jerks me into the air.

(Why is my life like this? Can I just start again please? Let’s just skip this regeneration and head straight to the next one.)

My glasses have fallen off: Dangling from a tree the world is a whirl of bright greens and sunlight that wouldn’t make much sense if it was the right way up, and _ooh,_ look, those two other trees over there are pretty weird looking, aren’t they? One built like a bamboo pole, the other like a panda bear. But trees aren’t meant to wear clothes, are they? Or carry water guns. Nope, I’m sorry folks but I can’t have that. No guns allowed, the Doctor says so. They make him  break out in hives.

“You,” says one of trees crossly, “are not the Tooth Fairy.”

(Ohhhh, not a tree. A human. Sorry, didn’t mean to mix them up like that. Very offensive to Trees. Blame it on the glasses. Or the regeneration. Or all the blood rushing to my head that suddenly makes everything super funny)

“Why are you looking for the tooth fairy?” I giggle.

The boy squirts me with his water gun. The cold water sobers me up, because I might be upside-down and younger than a fruit fly, but I’ve already been shot once today and I’m not eager to relive the experience.

(The Doctor was shot. Whatever.)

“What was that for?” I wriggle indignantly, trying to find the strength to pull myself up and undo the snare tying me to the tree. The other boy, the big one with darker skin and an orange headband, clutches his _Super Soaker 3000_ closer to his chest.

“I’m looking for the Tooth Fairy,” the first boy narrows his eyes, electric blue against brown skin, “because it kidnapped my little brother.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi, Lance. Hi, Hunk.  
> Plot is happening guys! Sort of. Pidge and Shiro shall be reunited soon, don't worry.  
> As always, any thoughts you have are much appreciated. Was the monster chase-thing okay? Constructive criticism is the best. COMMENTS ARE AMAZING DID I MENTION.  
> (I'm sorry. I'm tired).  
> Thanks so much for reading! See you next chapter!


	4. Strike Fifteen - Part 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'M SORRY FOR THE LATE UPDATE I HATE UNI ASSESSMENTS UGH

So, just to recap, I’m dangling from a tree by my ankle with no trousers on. I have to wrestle with the Doctor’s shirt to stop it hanging over my face,

At this point I suppose I should reassure you about my underwear. No, it is not falling down. Special Velsubrian Cotton, y’see. Stretches and shrinks to fit the owner. Never leave the box without it.

That’s the thing with Time Lords; always having to think ahead, safeguarding against the stranger who could take over your life at any second, to stop them ruining it.

Every morning you have to dress in clothes you’ll be happy to die in. One of the reasons we’re so attached to our outfits.

I scowl down at the two high-schoolers who’ve done a better job at trapping me than the Master ever has.  

“What do you mean the Tooth Fairy kidnapped your brother - can you cut me down please? I feel silly talking to your feet.”

“Why should we do that?” asks the tall skinny one, Stringbean, let’s call him.

I twist and try to give him the Doctor eyes upside-down and bright red from blood-rush.

“Because I can help you save him.”

The boy stares at me for a second, but he really must be desperate because all the defiance leaves him in a huff.

“Hunk get her down.”

The big one (I hereby dub thee Headband) grimaces, reaches up and unties the rope attaching me to the tree. I fall to the floor in a very dignified heap. Stringbean leans over me.

“Alright, now you’re going to -”

I jump up and punch him in the jaw. The Doctor may not approve, but if he doesn’t like it he should’ve stuck around.

(It _hurts_ , punching people. I’d forgotten, it’s been so long. There’s something poetic in that, huh? You can’t cause pain without feeling it yourself. God I’m getting old.)

Stringbean scrambles back and levels his super soaker at me.

“Oh yeah,” I smirk, “three thousand years of facing down the worst evils in the universe and you’ve finally discovered my secret weakness. Water pistols.”

He squirts me in the face again.

“Why you little -” I gasp, and lunge at him, but Headband hooks me round the stomach from behind and lifts me easily into the air.

“Calm down,” he says softly.

“Geroff me, Yogi Bear!” I yell, wriggling but unable to free myself. Headband just sighs and flips me upside-down again.

“Not until you promise not to hurt my friend. He’s been through a lot -”

“Don’t tell _her_ ,” Stringbean interrupts, “C’mon man, some privacy, please.”

“She said she could help.”

“She’s running round the forest in her underwear.”

“Unhand me!” I yell, “I have seen universes fall to dust you insignificant -” Headband spins me 360 degrees, a midair cartwheel, and nausea forces me quiet.

“Can you help us?” he asks.

 _Can’t even help myself,_ I think.

“Maybe,” I say carefully, because empty promises are a very Doctor thing to do, “there are strange things going on here, in the woods. They might be connected. But you have to put me down first.”

Headband obliges. It’s funny how much you miss the ground after only a few seconds away from it.

“Why should we trust you?” Stringbean demands. I consider for a second. _I don’t know_ , I want to tell him, but I can’t have that. I think of Takashi, and the betrayal and hurt and fear in his eyes as he realised what I was. The blame, for killing the person he loved.

“Because I’m your best bet,” I say, straightening to my full, wholly unimpressive four foot-nothing, “and,” I catch his eyes and hold them there. The’re TARDIS blue. I take it as a good sign, “I’m going to earn your trust. Come on, up here.”

“Why?”

I scowl. The constant questions are not endearing him to me.

“Because there’s a big fuck-off monster up there and I want to know why. Less of a Tooth Fairy, more of a Big Bad Wolf, but probably connected, yes?” I start struggling up the hill, but it’s being unreasonably steep and I backslide until Headband puts a hand on the small of my back and pushes me forward.

Very useful this one. I think I might keep him.

(Replacing Takashi already).

With much huffing (them) and swearing (me) we make it back to the crest of the hill.

The woods are dusk-dark and the trees hang over our heads like death threats.

“Why is the light so weird?” Headband whimpers. I shrug. Poor guy is shaking like a leaf.

“Do you… wanna hold my hand?” I stick my left out awkwardly, and he grasps it almost too tight. We venture into the dark together, Stringbean sloping behind us, checking angles with his ridiculous oversized squirt-gun.

It isn’t hard to track the monster; it’s left a long scar of bent-back branches and crushed underbrush in its wake. It could be injured. Maybe that’s why it didn’t catch me.

“What’s your name, by the way?” I ask Headband, mostly to stop the sound of his teeth chattering. He at least has earned the right to a name.

“I’m Hunk,” he smiles weakly.

“Oh you poor thing. I’m so sorry.”

Stringbean snorts in the background, but on second thoughts  Hunk lives up to his name. He picked me up like I was nothing, but on the outside he seems all soft sunshine smiles. A grizzly dressed in a Care Bear onesie.

“What’s your name?” he asks me. _He’s just trying to be friendly, he’s just trying to be friendly..._

“I dunno yet. Could be anything really, if I wanted,” I peer through the shadows, hoping inspiration will strike, “Treehugger? Nah, too schmaltzy. The Hunter? Definitely not, far too aggressive.” I have a brief flash of cold bronze domes and singular, glowing blue eyes, “Predator…”

I realise I’ve already been renamed a thousand times by the people I defeat, the ones I leave behind. How many legends are there out there that make me a devil?

That’s the problem with naming yourself; you do it from the inside out. Choosing _The Doctor_ was only ever wish fulfillment, really. If I wanted a true reflection of who I used to be, I should look at how everyone else defined me. The Valeyard. The Oncoming Storm. The Predator.

“Maybe you could call yourself Twig?” the tall one snaps me out of it.

“Y’know what Stringbean -”

“My name is Lance,” he frowns.

I snort.

“Yeah, like that’s any better.”

Hunk squeezes my hand and I refocus on the trail, lit by the oil-slick rainbow glittering through the branches above us.

“Sorry, by the way,” I tell Stringbean (Lance), not looking up, “For punching you.”

(I’m not doing this for the Doctor. Takashi wouldn’t approve, that’s all. He may not be here anymore, but I’ll carry him with me, the way the Doctor was too scared to do. I won’t forget. Not his smile or his easy hold on the thrusters as he wove a starship through an asteroid field like it was nothing, or that adorable tuft of hair I always had to stop myself batting at like a cat.)

(The Doctor stopped himself, not me. I probably wouldn’t even be able to reach now. I try to remind myself, but it doesn’t quite stick. Screw the Doctor. Takashi is mine.)

(Was.)

Lance stays quiet.

“So your brother,” I say, “any idea what happened to him?”

Hunk fills in the gaping silence.

“Everyone thinks Diego got lost in the woods, but Lance… saw something.”

“Something to do with the Tooth Fairy?” I guess.

“That’s what it looked like,” Lance’s frown doesn’t suit his face any more than the Doctor’s smile suits mine, “I was coming back from the bathroom in the middle of the night when I saw this… _glow_ coming from Diego’s room,” he looks up at the refracted light above us, sickly sugar glazing, “I looked through the gap in the door and I saw it.”

_I can see it, reaching out to him with my mind. Not very good manners, but I need to see…_

_A small boy’s bedroom through a door crack, awash in watercolour neon,_

_a tiny figure, spindle limbs and gossamer wings, hovering over his sleeping face,_

_it reaches down_

_brushes his closed eyelids, almost lovingly,_

_the light goes brighter, blinding, and_

_Gone._

The light in the forest feels cold now. Icy. It carves Lance’s face into deep shadow.

“He was so excited about losing his tooth,” he says.

I cough, shaking off the after-effects of all that teen angst. I’m going to need a long shower after today.

“So if he disappeared in his room, why are you out here?”

“This light,” Lance gestures up, “people started reporting it a few days ago, police thought it was an illegal laser show. But I knew. it’s the same one that took Diego.”

“So you just decided to play Pokemon trainer with the Tooth Fairy?”

“You think that’s weird?”

He seems honestly embarrassed. Self-conscious. I roll my eyes. I’ve got a feeling I’m going to get a lot of practice doing that.

“I’m tramping round the woods in my underwear and you’re asking if I think _you’re_ weird? Nah, ‘course not. Spent most of my childhood running around the woods at home. My first childhood, that is. Didn’t have much else to do, really. I had this friend, this… only friend,” I realise what I’m saying, how private these secrets are meant to be, but the worlds have already escaped now, “People didn’t trust him either. But his father owned this huge stretch of land and we’d spend forever catching creatures there. Not to hunt them, mind. I just wanted to talk.”

“Talk? With the animals?”

“Sure. That’s how I got my start in languages. In the end everyone in the universe is just looking for someone to listen to them. Me and the monsters both. I was good at that, the listening thing. I wonder if I still am?”

We step into a clearing and come face to face with the monster.

“Ah,” I say cheerfully, “here’s an opportunity to test that hypothesis.”

Lance readies his squirt gun. Hunk squeals and thrusts me in front of him, four feet meant to shield all six of him.

The monster… doesn’t move. It just lies there, a mountain of muscle and fur turned to a plushie with the stuffing ripped out, huffing like a chainsmoker on his deathbed. The trail of destruction has turned into a deep furrow in the dirt where it’s dragged itself forward, like the trail a snail leaves behind as it oozes along. And it _is_ oozing something. Blood?

I take a step forward.

“What are you doing?” Lance hisses.

The monster’s ears prick. Its great head cuts a trough in the earth as it turns to glare at me, but the fire in its eyes is too tired, the growl it gives me too hoarse.

I take another step. Up-close it looks terrible, fur coming off in clumps, exposing pale, milky skin. Something milky oozes from its pores. The acrid stench of vomit pricks my nose.

“What happened to you?” I breathe.

It whimpers, something just canine enough to remind me of my dog, and suddenly it’s not a monster there at all but K9, and it’s okay, good dog, good dog, good…

Except it’s not.  As I come to sit beside it I get a good look at the thing, the massive forepaws of a bear and the sharp snout of a wolf. Too many teeth force its mouth open, like two separate sets have been forced into the same space. It’s like some mad Frankenstein took the pieces of two animals and fused them together.

It was never anger in its eyes, I realise. Just pain.

“Hey,” I say, low, soothing, lifting its head into my lap and running a hand through its fur. This is so much easier with animals, “hey, it’s OK. I’m here now. I can help.”

It groans and more fur comes away in my hand. The skin underneath is lumpy, like -

“What the hell is happening to it?” Lance yelps.

I twist to look. The creature’s body is changing, even as we watch. The fur has fallen away from its hindquarters and from the skin is sprouting…

“Plants?” Hunk whispers.

Green shoots push through skin like its soil, stems race upward, leaves growing and unfurling like wings.

I realise what the ooze is. Sap. Plant sap.

The monster shudders, cradled in my lap.

“What is it?” I ask it quickly, as the wave of green spreads over its body like a cancerous rash, “What happened to you? How did you get here? Please, I need answers.”

It convulses; breath is coming in knives now. I reach out and try to touch its mind with mine, but the fragments of consciousness bite like broken glass and I have to retreat, from the static and cutting, animal fear.

A bear-paw jerks out and carves the earth like paper.

“Get away!” Hunk hoists me up by the armpits but I yell, kick out, trying to get back to the monster, to K9, to Takashi huddled on the floor with his face covered in blood…

The green reaches the creatures eyes and it stops moving.

It’s over.

Hunk lowers me back to the ground. My legs give out and I’m on the floor again.

Where there had been a living, breathing creature just seconds ago stands a clump of fern and hedge. The plants are still growing, reaching up to the sky where the refracted sunlight stains everything the putrid greens and purples of half set bruises.

The circle of life.

Bile burns at the back my throat and I roll over to vomit, but all that comes out is a warm stream of golden light.

No Doctor, don’t go. We need you now, a doctor could’ve helped..

I grab at the light but it slips through my fingers, glittering merrily as it escapes through the trees.

“What was that?” Lance says finally. They didn’t notice the regeneration energy, they’re both still transfixed by the garden growing where the creature’s corpse used to be.

I jump up.

“No idea. Did the plants turn him into compost? Did they grow from him?” I wave my sonic crystal around, hoping it will pick up some readings I’ll be able to interpret once I get a new casing, “come on. You’re done here.”

“But -”

“But nothing,” I say shortly, turning away from the creature (just a bush. A topiary, instant-grow) “I’ll get you back home, but what just happened is way beyond you, and I don’t need you distracting me.”

“Pretty big talk for someone who still needs a booster seat.”

“Shut the fuck up, Lance.”

We troop back the way we came in silence, retracing the monster’s last steps before it died. Hunk doesn’t hold my hand this time. Maybe I’ve scared him off, too.  

Normal sunlight is a relief, and the boys lead me past the thinly-wooded area where we’d met and over to the main road.

“So,” I say, stopping just where the grass hit tarmac, “this is where I step off.”

“You said you’d help find my brother!” Lance protests.

“I’ve got my own problems,” as I talk sirens echo in the distance, and next second a police cruiser draws up beside us, “ooh look, you guys even get your own private chauffeur.”

The officer who heaves himself out of the car is every cop show stereotype rolled into one: Thick, greying moustache, wide-brimmed hat and an impressive paunch.

Been looking for you boys,” he grunts.

“Aww,” I grin, “don’t you guys feel special? Now, I’d say it was nice to meet you but I’d be lying, and I’m not really into that anymore. See’ya!”

I turn to march back the way I came, find the TARDIS and work from there. The police officer coughs.

“Where d’you think you’re going, ma’am?”

“Bearhunting,” I try a sunny smile. The officer is unimpressed,

“Get in the car, ma’am. You’re going back to school.”

I stare at him blankly.

“I’m what now?” I look down at myself and it clicks, “Oh, I see the confusion. Don’t worry, officer, I’m not one of _them_ ,” i gesture at the boys as one would at dead rats, “I’m actually a three-thousand-year-old time-travelling alien and _ooh_ , that is not helping assure you I’m a responsible adult, is it?”

“You’re not wearing any pants.” The officer observes, rather damningly.

I look down at my impressively knobbly knees.

“Ah, yes. Temporary arrangement. My legs are brand new, you see. They wanted to see the world.”

“Ma’am, I’m going to ask you to get in the car now.”

“Well, before you do that, I’d like to direct your attention to this completely harmless thing in my hand here.”

I whip out my sonic crystal and wave it around a bit.

Crackle, POP.

One of the lights on top of the police car explodes.

The officer brushes a shard of plexiglass off his immaculate shirt and folds his arms. I sigh deflatedly.

“Would it be easier if I put on the cuffs myself?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> References in this include the Master, a fellow time lord and the Doctor's best friend-cum-arch enemy, and K9, a robot dog who travelled with the Fourth Doctor.  
> Was it any good? Anything I could improve? Shiro wasn't in this but he and Pidge will reunite soon!  
> As always comments are amazing and unmatched motivation.

**Author's Note:**

> So I'm just throwing this up here to see if people like it (because I've never written these two before), and if you do I'll keep writing.  
> Doctor Who is my favourite show ever and Pidge is my favourite character from anything, so I couldn't resist.  
> Please comment as they are the greatest thing ever invented by man and make my week.  
> Thanks for reading!
> 
> (PS Peter Cushing is a reference to when he played Dr. Who in a couple of 60s TV movies based on the Doctor)


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